Sweet Crisis of Sugar

My sugar search started. I scanned shelves. I asked shop assistants. But there was no sugar to be seen. Last week I tried several small shops before finding someone selling sugar. But this time, success was just around the corner, at the second shop I tried!

Sugar success!

Sugar used to be bought for 1800 shillings/kilogram (56p/kg or Cdn $1.10/kg). But with the current Tanzanian sugar shortage (which started last month), the price has risen at times to as much as 5000 shillings (£1.56 or $3)! I was pleased to get mine for 3000 Tsh this time.

Tanzanian friends of ours joked with us that Tanzanians put all their sugar in their tea (they love very sweet tea) while we put our sugar quota in our cakes and cookies! And so we see it now. The Tanzanians are struggling to sweeten their tea and we are missing a cookie after school or our standard banana muffins for breakfast or school snack! Rationing and substituting.

This sweet disaster is no laughing matter. The availability and affordability of sugar has degenerated into a crisis. And the sugar politics is proving bitter and rather hard to follow. Government and business are accusing each other of creating the crisis, but many believe it started in February when President Magufuli announced the sugar import ban, saying he would be the only person to issue permits as the whole sugar import process was steeped in corruption. And so prices have soared. Accusations have been made about sugar hoarding to creating an artificial shortage to justify price hikes. And meanwhile Magufuli's impossible attempts to fix the price at 1800 Tsh fail. And yes, the temptation once sugar is found, to buy up all the sugar in the shop is real and sweet. Sinful selfishness stirred up by sweet sugar.

It used to cost 200 shillings to get a cup of chai; now it will cost 300 shillings, so many opt out. So going without chai, I continued with my shopping. Pretty much everything we need can be bought at the local market. Shopping is a cheerful, friendly wander through the stalls jam-packed of people (much easier in the dry season without the rivers running underfoot). Someone selling tomatoes, another mama selling green lemons, men selling onions and potatoes. Most of the fruit is outside. As my woven basket was close to filling up, I spotted the most enormous avacados! They were the size of melons. But then chatting to the seller, I was reminded of the sugar crisis ... these giant avacodos were imported! But imported from Burundi, a country entrenched in a far more bitter crisis.


Avacados in the market



Someone transporting sugarcane on the road from the market

Back at home, with the shopping and precious sugar unpacked and put away, lunch preparations were underway and we enjoyed a visit from Pastor Amon who had just returned with Tim from Kayenze. Amon and Tim had been meeting with village leaders and trying to meet with the agricultural officer, discussing the next phase of the agricultural project working with more farmers and in a new sub-village. After our lunch of rice, chickpeas and cabbage and peanut butter cookies made with honey, we gave Amon a "tour" of the progress in our demonstration plot.

Tim and Amon in our shamba

Finally after all the floods, we are beginning to work our way out of the soggy mess down there! Young banana trees are doing well. Tim's cover crops of jackbeans, lablab and pigeon peas are prolific. Tomatoes are fruiting. Sunflowers are coming up and squashes too. And my precious artemisia has survived against the odds and is growing well. Pausing at the huge mass of sugar cane (planted by our neighbours on site) next to the banana tree, I contemplated how we could home-process some benefit from it. But without a cane press, I think it will remain to be hacked off and chewed by the kids on their way to school ... while we consider the benefits of a sugar-free diet.

Sugarcane and bananas with a covercrop of jackbeans

Lemongrass and tomatoes

Our first attempt to grow parsnips

 

Let's Fly!

We have tickets booked! And with that, travelling to Canada and the UK suddenly seems to be approaching rather too quickly! We are so excited about seeing family and friends again (and enjoying those things we miss), but there is still much to do here before then!

It was September, 2012 the last time we landed in England (we stayed until just after a visit to Canada at Christmas), and it's that funny thing about time, which makes it seem just ages ago, yet at the same time, we hardly seem to have been here since long at all!

We fly from Mwanza on March 27th and six airports and a long time later, are looking forward to being Canadian for three weeks with family and friends! Then we have a few days in the Toronto area with EI Canada and are excited about meeting up with Laura (from Iringa) before flying to the UK, to Louisa's great delight, on her birthday! Then we will enjoy being British for a term and see as many of you there as we can before coming back at the end of July.

And now, here are a couple of links to some extra reading if you are interested...

Click Here to read our latest newsletter!

Although if you follow the blog, the newsletter is, (as my sister pointed out in the nicest-possible-way) rather boring! But as not everyone has internet access (although I think this is now few more than my grandparents - who get the blog printed and delivered by my kind aunts!), I try to make the effort for a good ol'fashioned (albeit rather occasional, and perhaps largely unread!) newsletter!

Also, we recently wrote an article for the Emmanuel International Down to Earth Magazine on the agricultural project. Now as the blog is chronological and jumps about depending on what happens each week, this brief article could be an easier way of seeing what has been happening with this project since September.

 Click Here to read the Down to Earth article!

And with that, I would just like to thank you, dear readers, for reading and following along! And a special thank you to many of you for being so supportively interested and encouraging! See you soon!

On the Rocks

As promised here are a few fun photos taken while Sue Fallon (EI) was with us last week! Fun on the rocks at Malaika Beach and more fun on the Dancing Rocks, just a short walk up from our house in Bwiru.

On Sunday, Tim and Amisadai went with Sue and also Esther and Peter (Agricultural Awareness Group) to the Church in Kayenze (35km from Mwanza and where we held the Sodis Shake). After the service, in which Tim preached, they all headed outside to the Lake where there was a baptism for four members of the church!

Lake Victoria, Kayenze

Kayenze TAG Church

Lake Baptism

Then our little group toured the shambas where Tim was pleased to see the progress made even since the training seminar the week before last. The farmers have started mulching and covering the ground and impressively have started a compost! So we are eagerly awaiting planting the crops with them next week! As you know from the last blog post, the rains have definitely started; we awoke to the same dark and wet scenario this morning, but thankfully made it to the bottom of the road without incident!

With Pastor Amon and Peter and Esther

Compost!

Amisadai loves goats!

Amisadai before she crashed into the tree.
Just kidding - it was stationary!

I was delighted to be invited to speak last week at the weekly women's service at BMCC in Nyegezi. We have formed some great relationships with various people at this church (most of whom are called Esther!) and I am excited about doing more with the women here. Mama Esther (the pastor's wife) is a lovely lady, with a great big heart for people which is demonstrated in the way that she serves others and seeks transformation!  


Women's Bible Study at BMCC

And telling more in pictures ...


Sue talks about EI to Tim's Bible College students



Dinner with Dr Makori